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Arizona sheriff says doesn't have complete control of his county (border-related crime)

Posted Tue, Jun 6, 2010 at 8:29 pm

Earlier this month and before, supporters of illegal immigration were harping on stories like this that tried to downplay worries about immigration crime in Arizona. Now, see this:

Pinal County investigators say an area known as the smuggling corridor now stretches from Mexico's border to metro Phoenix.

The area , once an area for family hiking and off road vehicles has government signs warning residents of the drug and human smugglers.

Night vision cameras have photographed military armed cartel members delivering drugs to vehicles along Highway 8.

"We are three counties deep. How is it that you see pictures like these, not American with semi and fully automatic rifles. How is that okay?" asked Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu.

Babeu said he no longer has control over parts of his county.

"We are outgunned, we are out manned and we don't have the resources here locally to fight this," he said at a Friday news conference.

You may recall Babeu from John McCain's "danged fence" ad (peekURL.com/vqr2evm). At the time that first appeared, some on the far-left tried to claim that his concerns weren't valid because his county isn't on the border. Obviously, it doesn't matter: what starts on the border ends up in other parts of Arizona and the U.S.

UPDATE: Video of his press conference is at youtube.com/watch?v=8Mz0eNDOI_0 and a more recent Fox News interview with Babeu is at peekURL.com/v5u19dq